The theme of ecology.
[LAUGHTER]
And that is where it all begins, the ecology of the body.
Like Watts, in one of his essays,
talks about the three great questions of the cosmos
in any time and any place.
Where did it all come from?
What can we do with it?
And who cleans up?
[LAUGHTER]
I think poets have always been into ecology, though they
didn't call it that.
And they didn't think of it as cleaning up the environment
or making war on pollution or task forces
but rather singing reverence for nature, for the Earth,
for the mother, and for all her children
and the fish and the deer.
It's a wonderful poem by Ralph--
well, Rafe, he called himself--
Rafe Hodgson, a British poet who came to the United States,
lived here a good many years, and died here.
He's not a very good poet, but he has a few wonderful poems,
like this one.
"'Twould ring the bells of heaven,
their wildest peal in years, if Parson lost his senses
and people came to theirs and all of them together knelt down
in angry prayers for tame and shabby tigers and dancing dogs
and bears and wretched, blind pit ponies and little hunted
hares."